It’s In Queens! (Aug. 17 to Aug. 23)

Please don’t shoot the messenger, but the summer is starting to wind down. This week’s calendar reflects this reality with orchids, honey, a block party extraordinaire, and outdoor performances mixing with indoor film festivals and a community sculpture day.

Aug. 17, NYsferatu: Symphony of a Century, 7 pm. More Art premieres a hand-animated silent film that combines music and community engagement to make a statement about the horrors of the unknown and the search for liberty. Andrea Mastrovito and his team of 12 artists created more than 35,000 original drawings to replicate the eerie flickering shutter effect of early cinema. Free. Queens Museum, NYC Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, http://bit.ly/2wJaJo6.

Aug. 18, Taiwan: A World of Orchids, Aug. 20. Check out Taiwanese orchids and participate in a weekend-long celebration of Taiwanese culture. Queens Botanical Garden, 43-50 Main St., Flushing, http://bit.ly/2fFpeoV.

Aug. 18, Interstellar, Aug. 20. The annual See It Big! Series screens this sci-fi epic set in a near future where environmental problems have made the Earth uninhabitable and scientists plan to transport people to a new planet via a wormhole. (Times: Aug. 18 at 7 pm; Aug. 19 at 3 pm; and Aug. 20 at 3 pm.) $15. Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Ave., Astoria’s Kaufman Arts District, http://bit.ly/2uVabcP.

Aug. 18, Finding Dory, dusk. Watch an outdoor movie with the Midtown Manhattan skyline in the background as part of the Cinema LIC series. Free. LIC Landing, Center Boulevard and 51st Avenue, http://bit.ly/2tGNv0M.

Aug. 19, Summer Women Film Series: Silkwood, 1 pm. This film, starring Meryl Streep, is inspired by Karen Silkwood, a nuclear whistleblower and labor union activist who died in a suspicious car accident while investigating the plutonium facility where she worked. It screens as part of an ongoing 100th anniversary celebration of women getting the right to vote in New York State in 1917. Free. Greater Astoria Historical Society, 35-20 Broadway, LIC, http://bit.ly/2wITB1L.

Aug. 22, Dan Martin Ensemble, 7 pm. This group plays jazz as part of the Live at the Gantries series. Free. Gantry Plaza State Park, 4-09 47th Rd., LIC, http://bit.ly/2v4Knvi.

Aug. 22, Summer Reading: Sinclair Lewis, 6:30 pm. Read and discuss It Can’t Happen Here by Lewis. Written during the Great Depression when the country was largely oblivious to Hitler’s aggression, this book juxtaposes political satire with the realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, rampant promiscuity, crime, and a liberal press. Free. Greater Astoria Historical Society, 35-20 Broadway, LIC, http://bit.ly/2wJ6Rn7.

Aug. 23, Outdoor Film Series, 7 pm. Food, entertainment, and a screening of Bad Hair, a comedy about a young boy who lives in a rough neighborhood in Caracas with a mother who suspects he is gay. Cachapas y Mas restaurant sells food. Free. Socrates Sculpture Park, 32-01 Vernon Blvd., LIC, http://bit.ly/2w6IUrR.